Oswald letters to Sen. Tower head to auction

The box sat untouched in the attic of a Washington house until recently, when the sale of the house forced some cleaning out, some poking around in long-overlooked places.

Inside the box was a manila file folder headed: "Lee Harvey Oswald."

Inside the folder was a handwritten letter that Oswald had sent from the Soviet Union, complaining that the Soviet government would not grant him an exit visa to the United States. It was addressed to Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, who lived in the house with his second wife in the 1980s.

The other items in the folder are all typewritten - letters from Tower to the State Department, letters from the U.S. consul in Moscow to Oswald, letters from the State Department to Tower, and brief memorandums from Tower's staff after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as Tower defended himself against the impression that he had helped clear the way for Oswald's return to the United States.

A Texas company called EasySale plans to open an online auction of the items. EasySale maintains that the letters are originals, not copies such as those among Tower's papers at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. A handwriting expert hired by EasySale to examine the Oswald letter concluded that the tight script was Oswald's.

The Oswald letter to Tower, who died in 1991, is undated but was widely quoted after the Kennedy assassination and again in the Warren Commission report in 1964.

It began as an appeal from a constituent: "My name is Lee Harvey Oswald, 22, of Fort Worth up till October 1959," when, he wrote, he had gone to the Soviet Union "for a residential stay."

After explaining his visa problem, Oswald wrote, "I beseech you, Senator Tower, to rise (sic) the question of holding by the Soviet Union of a citizen of the U.S., against his will and expressed desires!!"

According to the Warren Commission report, a caseworker in Tower's office forwarded the letter to the State Department.

A copy of a cover letter was in the attic folder and made clear that Tower's office was simply passing along Oswald's plea.